Creme de la Creme Episode 2 : Tue 5th April 8pm BBC2

Three more teams of patisserie chefs enter the competition on week 2. The search for the creme de la creme of British pastry continues with Tom Kerridge hosting. The three teams couldn’t be more different, each applying their bake off skills to the competition. The teams are the British Armed Forces, a team from a world-famous London hotel and the only all-women team.

The Creme de la Creme judges will be keeping a close eye, with each team hoping to impress with their baking skills so as to secure a place in the semi-finals. The judging panel includes Benoit Blin, chef patissier at Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Claire Clark MBE, world-renowned pastry chef and consultant, and Cherish Finden, executive pastry chef at The Langham, London.

Miniature Challenge

The teams have only 3 hours to make 108 pastries, creating and baking 36 opera slices, 36 hand-crafted pastries called babka knots (as featured in the official show recipe book Bake Off: Crème de la Crème (Great British Bake Off)), and 36 petits gateaux in the shape of a sphere. Each item in each batch must be consistent in appearance, finished to the very highest professional standards and of course utterly delicious. With just 3 hours to make 108 pastries it will certainly be a ‘more-than-miniature’ challenge.

Showpiece Challenge

The team are asked to reinvent a popular British dessert as a fine-dining experience and present it as a dazzling showpiece display. The humble dessert getting the five-star makeover this week is trifle. Two teams take gardens as their theme, one English, the other Japanese, while the third team performs a feat of chocolate engineering. The results are simply jaw-dropping but which team will please the judges?

You can buy the official book to accompany the series, helping you to master the secrets of showstopping patisserie with the beautiful book of the BBC series presented by Tom Kerridge, and from the team behind Great British Bake Off: